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Smeared on crumpets, melted over new potatoes and baked into biscuits, nothing beats butter. Its deliciousness is undisputed, so recent research into itshealth benefits – including one report, involving more than a million people, which found no evidence that saturated fat is bad for you, and another which not only found that butter is only weakly associated with total mortality, but that it also seems to protect, slightly, against diabetes – has been embraced by chefs and home cooks alike.

At last, an excuse to consume more of the creamy stuff. Nutritional regimes such as the Banting Dieteven encourage slimmers to fill up on fat, while some swear a “Bulletproof Coffee” (into which is swirled a dollop of butter) sets them up for the day.

Butter beats margarine when it comes to tasteCredit:
PHOTO LIBRARY

Butter is having a moment: sales continue to rise, while margarine falls further out of favour. Pop into any supermarket and you’ll see the evidence in the aisles: Waitrose, for example, stocks no fewer than 14 different brands of butter.

Chefs, already fans, are taking it even more seriously now. “For restaurant kitchens, making butter in-house not only gives them the opportunity to show off more skill but also demonstrates an extra level of commitment to the quality of their ingredients,” says our columnist Stephen Harris, who for years has been churning his own at The Sportsman in Kent. “For me, the bread is just a sideshow – it’s all about the butter.”

Credit:
Geoff Pugh

Grant Harrington ofButter Culture has been experimenting with different bacteria to find the one that produces the richest, creamiest taste. A former Gordon Ramsay chef, he was astonished by the quality and flavour of butter he tasted in Sweden and decided to leave restaurant kitchens behind to create the best English butter he could make. He now sells his produce at London’s Druid St Market every weekend. “Butter has vitamins that promote brain function, including lots of vitamin A,” he says. “But the health benefits are an extra bonus. It’s all about making the butteriest butter I possibly can.”

At last, an excuse to consume more of the creamy stuff

But churning your own butter isn’t just a cheffy trend: Stevie Parle, who makes butter for his restaurants Craft London, The Dock Kitchen and Rotorino, believes it’s something we can all try. “We sour the cream first, add a traditional bacteria and then leave it for two days before making it into butter.Making your own butter at homeis a good idea – you can make it much more delicious.” A hand-turned pat of golden spread fits neatly into the DIY ethos of the moment (along with brewing, home-smoking and bread-making) although it may be a while before butter-churning parties become fashionable, as they are in some pockets of America.

Stephen Harris's seaweed butterCredit:
ANDREW TWORT

For purists, making your own butter simply calls for one thing: “A solid milk fat,” says Harrington. In Harris’s kitchen, that means unpasteurised Jersey cream: “It’s full of old-fashioned, authentic flavour – a mixture of the farmyard and meadow flowers.” He believes the quality rests on the cream used and the absence of pasteurisation, which changes the way it tastes, eliminating all those earthy flavours.

Smeared on crumpets, melted over new potatoes and baked into biscuits, nothing beats butter

Cream selected, the next stage is simply to place it in a jar, screw the lid on tightly, and shake madly – or let a stand mixer do the hard work for you. “After 10 minutes,” Harris explains, “the yellow fat will separate from the grey buttermilk and you can press it between wax paper and chill overnight.”

Chefs have been experimenting with butter flavours, mixing in fruit for some sweetnessCredit:
Haarala Hamilton

Making a simple Maldon salt-flecked block is a good place to start, but that’s just the beginning. “People can’t believe what you can put in butter”, says Selin Kiazim, the chef behind the soon-to-open London restaurant Oklava, who has just launched a medjool date butter at Selfridges: “They get very excited about all the possibilities.”

Fellow London chef Anna Hansen serves black garlic and hazelnut butter at The Modern Pantry; The Dairy in Clapham adds bone marrow, while in Edinburgh, Tom Kitchin drizzles escargot butter over lobster at The Kitchin.

Sweet additions are an obvious choice. Anita Janusic at Knead Bakery in London blends fruit and honeycomb through her butter to spread onto home-made crumpets. “We make fresh berry compotes, whip the butter and fold the two together. That way both the butter and the fruit melt and soak into the crumpet, rather than just the butter. People can’t get enough of it.”